Desi Making Waves

By Navdeep Kathuria

ABCDlady's Hero: Sendhil Ramamurthy

When I learned that Sendhil Ramamurthy (a.k.a. the hot Indian actor from NBC’s hit show Heroes and one of People Magazine’s 100 most beautiful people) was going to be at the South Asian Journalist Association (SAJA) convention, I began counting the days until his appearance. Sendhil plays Mohinder Suresh, a genetics professor who is trying to piece together why his father died. As someone who hasn’t jumped on the TiVo bandwagon, I spent the entire last season clearing my Monday nights to watch the show.

Interviews were supposed to take place at a roundtable in Lerner Hall at Columbia University, the site of the convention. I first spotted Sendhil walking with Sree Sreenivasan, co-founder of SAJA, down a long ramp. Sendhil was a lot thinner in person, but there was no doubt—here was my hero. I found Sendhil a cross between shy and charming. He sports a three-day-old beard (the creators insist that he always has a three-day unshaven look for the show) and he has an American accent. He picks up his British accent for the show from his wife, who was raised in England. The roundtable was a casual, laidback setting, and it was here that we got to chat with the star.

Navdeep Kathuria: I love your show. It’s where my whole Mondays are centered.
Ramamurthy: Very good. Good to hear! Aug. 28th—Season one DVD.

Navdeep Kathuria: August 28th? All right—I’ve already convinced people that they need to watch the show. They have to catch up.
Ramamurthy: They absolutely need to buy it and watch it.

Navdeep Kathuria: Do you like Bollywood? Would you ever star in a Bollywood film?
Ramamurthy: I would never dismiss anything out of hand. If it’s a good story, I would absolutely do it. It’s funny—I had my agent call me up. I’ve never heard him so excited because he just had a Bollywood offer come through for something. And he was like, “This is the first time we’ve ever had a Bollywood offer.” (Laughs.) And I was like, “great.” And I was like, “Is it good?” And he’s like, “No it’s awful. I was just really excited that we had a Bollywood offer.” I said, “Oh, great!”

Anantha Subramanian: So where did it all start? I mean, I could probably go online and find all this information.
Ramamurthy: You mean, where did what all start? You mean in my mother’s womb type thing?

Anantha Subramanian: No. That’s a good story actually (He laughs).
Ramamurthy: Actually, it’s pretty standard (He laughs). As far as acting goes, I kind of fell into it in college. It was totally to satisfy my arts credit to graduate. I took Intro to Acting, and I kinda fell in love with it…I just kind of did one play, because I had to, more or less. And I ended up loving it. It kind of went from there.

Richa Gulati: You were saying, were you pre-med at the time? Is that correct?
Ramamurthy: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Richa Gulati: And did you know you didn’t want to do that. And you fell into it?
Ramamurthy: I knew I hated medicine. There was no question.

Navdeep Kathuria: Did your parents push [you] towards [medicine]?
Ramamurthy: No, not at all. It was kind of like everyone I knew was a doctor. I might as well be a doctor! It was literally like, my parents couldn’t…they never pushed me in any direction. They kind of let me wander a little bit, which was great!

Richa Gulati: So they were okay with you deciding to go into [acting]?
Ramamurthy: Listen, they were shocked. Because I had never shown any interest or inclination to acting at all. But, once they got their head around it, they could not have been more supportive. Which, you know, is not the typical Indian parents. They were like, “Go for it.” They paid for drama school. They came and saw all my plays. You know—they were always flying out. I couldn’t afford my rent. They helped me out. Health Insurance. If I didn’t make my health insurance through the union, they hooked me up. I mean, they were great. They were absolutely—I couldn’t have done anything without them because, you know, you are mainly broke as an actor. That’s the truth of it. If you’re doing theatre, you’re making like 500 bucks a week. You’re doing great work, but you’re not exactly—

Navdeep Kathuria: Making Rent?
Ramamurthy: You’re not making rent, certainly. But yeah, that’s kinda how I got into this.

Navdeep Kathuria: I was reading that you don’t like to, that you didn’t even at the beginning, want to do the stereotypical kind of Indian roles.
Ramamurthy: No, it just wasn’t my thing. If that’s what was available to me, I would rather go into something else. I’d go be a doctor. I don’t know. No, not a doctor. But something else. I’d rather just go into something else

Richa Gulati: Do you feel like every kind of role is open to you with your background?
Ramamurthy: Yeah—definitely now. After Heroes, there are a lot of things that are open to me. Like completely, you know, not Indian roles. That’s not to say that I’m not going to do that. If an Indian role comes up that I like, I’ll absolutely do it. But, it’s not—I’m looking for good roles. I don’t really care what the ethnicity it is of it.

Navdeep Kathuria: How did you get on Heroes?
Ramamurthy: I just auditioned and auditioned and auditioned. I went in five times, I think. I jumped through every hoop possible. And ended up getting it. It was a very straightforward thing, in that, I went, I met the casting director, I read for them, they liked me, they brought me in to the director and the creator of the show, Tim Kring, I read for them, they liked me, they sent me to meet the studio—Universal. I went, I auditioned for them, they liked me. They passed me on to the final round, which was the network—NBC. And they liked me and I got the part.

Richa Gulati: But was the role originally written for someone your age?
Ramamurthy: No, no. No, not at all.

Navdeep Kathuria: It wasn’t for an Indian, right?
Ramamurthy: No, no. It was supposed to be a 55-year-old man. And, I found out afterwards that they would give, like a little speech before I came into the room of the audition. They were like, “I know how it’s written. This is the other option.” I didn’t know that. Thank God they didn’t tell me because I would have freaked out.

Navdeep Kathuria: Did they have you read in a British accent right away, or how did that work out?
Ramamurthy: No, no. It was actually an Indian accent when I did the audition. And then they asked me to soften it during the pilot. And then they asked me to change it after the pilot. So yeah—it was the incredible morphing accent.

Lisa Tsering: How long’s your contract right now?
Ramamurthy: All of our contracts are either 6 or 7 years. They own us for 6 or 7 years.

Diana Rohini La Vigne: You have a baby that’s maybe almost two years old. Tell us about your baby. Boy/Girl?
Ramamurthy: Baby girl.

Diana Rohini La Vigne: What’s her name?
Ramamurthy: Halina

Diana Rohini La Vigne: When will she turn 2?
Ramamurthy: Uh—next month.

Diana Rohini La Vigne: Got a picture?
Ramamurthy: I do, on my phone.

Diana Rohini La Vigne: You have? Let’s see it.
Ramamurthy: Actually, no. I got a new phone. And it’s not on this phone.

Diana Rohini La Vigne: Is that the iPhone?
Ramamurthy: Yeah. I just got it. So I have no pictures on it. Normally, I do.

Navdeep Kathuria: We believe you.
Ramamurthy: (He laughs) Normally I have loads of pictures. Trust me.

Navdeep Kathuria: So what’s next for you, after Heroes?
Ramamurthy: Whoever will have me. I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ll see. I’m absolutely reading scripts. I’m reading a lot of scripts…

Navdeep Kathuria runs ABCDlady when she’s not drooling over Sendhil Ramamurthy on Heroes.

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